The link between increased education for women and decreased fertility has become a central part of development discourse. To explore this relationship, a three-and-a-half-month research project examined the qualitative aspects of why and how education for girls could lead to a change in fertility behavior. Specifically, the report here offers a more rigorous understanding of the role that education plays within the community. Data were collected at the local level, in both rural and urban settings, and included focus group discussions, life histories, and in-depth interviews. Results show that schooling is valued not for the basic skills it provides, but for the jobs that students, and their families, anticipate upon graduation. Decreasing job opportunities contribute to perceptions that the time spent learning to read and write is time better spent at home. Girls, in particular, face inappropriate curriculums, low pass rates, and cultural restrictions, such as pressures to marry around the age of 12 and to work in the home. Parents feared that ideas taught in school clashed with local culture and they worried that their girls might become pregnant due to school association, ironically linking schooling with increased fertility. Contains 14 references. (RJM)